Out of the Skin into the Soul
by AKA62
Summary: It's not the wedding day that either of them expected. Mac didn't expect to be shot. Will didn't think he'd get a phone call that would cause him to give up the source. He'd been prepared for prison, for separation, but he was not at all prepared for the possibility of a life without Mac. Post 3X04: Contempt.


**A/N: Warning: I mean for it to be depressing. Not every story has a happy ending. All the same, I hope you enjoy. Set after 3X04: _Contempt_**

It was days like this that made Charlie Skinner sure he had made the right choice in his life by drinking early and often. Hell, it didn't even really matter if he could function as the head of the news division anymore. Their most famous anchor was in prison and they were two steps away from tweeting the news rather than broadcasting it. Oh, and to top it off, the guy who was usually in charge of the twitter feed had fled to South America, so they were pretty much fucked. They didn't even have the story to show for it.

Charlie had dropped Mac off with Sloan at Hang Chews, a poor substitute for the wedding reception she should have had. Then again, he supposed Will's night had to be worse. It was late and Charlie knew he should go home, but there was a group of anxious young staffers downstairs who had suddenly become untethered, and he didn't want to leave them alone without even a story to chase to keep their minds off of all the shit that had set their lives off kilter. He had just stood up, ready to go downstairs and give a rousing pep talk, when Jim Harper came tearing into his office without so much as a knock.

Charlie had just opened his mouth to yell when he caught the look on Jim's face. "What is it?" He asked, already fighting at the knot forming in his stomach.

"It's Mac."

Of course it was. Charlie gripped the edge of his desk, suddenly caught in the memory of the phone call from Jim that had started the same way, telling him that Mac had been stabbed. Charlie hadn't been able to see Jim then, but he imagined the fear on his face was much the same.

"Someone shot Mac."Yeah, it was definitely a day for drinking.

_

Sloan didn't need the paramedics to tell her that she was in shock, she didn't need the sympathetic looks from the emergency room nurses either. Mac had been shot. She had been right there, right next to Mac when the bullet knocked her down. It had taken her what felt like hours to put it together. A gunshot. Mac was shot. But when it finally sunk in—when it hit her she was crashing to her knees beside Mac, blindly pushing all of her weight onto the wound (_a gunshot. A gunshot!) _with her palms. Sloan must have been crying, though she couldn't remember. She might have said Mac's name. She might have sobbed. Mac was awake, in the beginning, before the paramedics started shouting orders, before Sloan heard that she wasn't breathing. Before Mac stopped breathing (and Sloan still couldn't wrap her head around it, because there was no way this was happening. Not to Mac. Not today. Not ever) it was Mac who was comforting _her_.

"It's okay," she had rasped, "it's okay."

All Sloan had managed was a nod. It wasn't until the paramedics had whisked Mac away and Sloan was left kneeling in a puddle of blood that she realized just how _not _okay it was.

"Jesus." Sloan looked up to see Don in the doorway of the waiting room. It was such a small space that it took him less than three steps to get to her. He fell heavily into the chair beside her, shrugging out of his jacket and setting it around her shoulders. It was only then that Sloan noticed she was trembling.

"I'm such a fucked up friend," she told him, voice thick with tears (had they ever stopped? When had they started? When had her body known it was time to mourn?) "She comforted _me _and I couldn't think of a damn thing to say."

"Shh." Don took her hand. Every inch of her skin was red, caked with blood. She must have been covered in scarlet, but Sloan didn't dare look. It was Mac's blood. If she saw it, it would mean that she wasn't dreaming, that Mac's blood really had spread its tendrils all over the pavement in front of her apartment, that in the midst of all the photographers (who shouldn't have been there. Who gives a damn about newscasters and executive producers anyway?) , someone really had shouted Mac's full name, all of those M's slung alliteratively at her, and then pulled out a gun and shot her.

The police told her they'd caught him, some nut job who hadn't even bothered to run, happy to say that he had attempted murder for the sake of making his hatred of whistleblowers, and anyone who would protect them, known. If he had known Mac, or even talked to her for one second, he never would have been able to do it.

"Jim should have been there." She closed her eyes, leaning her head against Don's shoulder. It was strange to feel something other than the chill that had crept its way inside her and the plastic of the seat beneath her. Don was warm and very, _very _real. Everything else seemed ridiculous, a joke, a nightmare. "Jim would have known what to do. He's been to a warzone. He would have known it was a gunshot. He wouldn't have stood there like an idiot."

Don ran his fingers through her hair. There was blood there too. He tried to ignore it. "You didn't just stand there. You were there for her. That counts for something."

"I don't know if it does," she whispered.

"Ms. Sabbith?" Sloan's head jerked up and she nearly jumped to her feet as she caught sight of the doctor.

"Is she okay?" Her heart was pounding in her ears, and she was worried that she might miss what he said. She forced herself to take a deep breath. Her eyes flicked over the doctor's face; calm, expressionless, careful.

"Mackenzie was without oxygen for some time before the paramedics were able to resuscitate her. She's very lucky to be alive."

"She's a fighter," Sloan supplied, feeling almost silly for saying it, but she needed this guy to understand who he was taking care of, just how special she was.

He nodded, "but, lack of oxygen to the brain for that long a time can cause damage. We can't know the extent until her body has a chance to recover."

"But you know something. You know the expected outcome. I mean, you guys are good at this. This is what you do. Triage, separate the hopeless ones from the ones who have a chance. You _know, _you suspect at least, how this is going to play out. So, how about we call the bullshit and you tell me how my friend is?"

Don laid a hand on her arm, and she could tell from his face that she had been screaming her rant, but she couldn't bring herself to care. The doctor didn't bat an eye. This was his world, Sloan could see it in his eyes, a world of terrified people who said things they didn't mean.

"A machine is breathing for her," he admitted. "We'll know more in a day or two. There are tests we simply can't run right now."

"Okay." Sloan let her knees give way and crashed back into her seat. Don scrubbed a weary hand over his face.

"We'll call you as soon as we have Mackenzie settled in the ICU." The doctor left the room. Sloan could hear the fluorescents winking in his wake, hear Don's breathing mingled with her own. It was so easy, automatic. In and out. Mac couldn't even breathe, and if she couldn't breathe, what did that mean?

Up the elevator, right, left, another left, down a long hallway, through a door that led to a private waiting room, wait to get buzzed in, down another hallway, to the right. Will tried to memorize the way to the ICU. He tried to focus on anything but the truth of the situation. If he could memorize the way, then he wouldn't have to focus on the fact that it was Mac he was going to visit there, he could push past the feeling that he was going to pass out. The closer he got to Mac's room the harder it got, until he couldn't make his legs move any more. He stood stalk still, frozen in terror as machines buzzed and nurses flitted in and out of rooms. He had the childish sense that if he turned around and went to the apartment, he would find Mac there, ready to yell at him for giving up the source to be with her. If he didn't go into the room then maybe she wouldn't be there. Maybe she would be safe. Then he saw Sloan.

Her shoulders were slumped, heaving with sobs. Her hand was clamped over her mouth, trying to quiet herself, or stop herself from being sick, or both. She looked as close to collapse as he felt, and most alarmingly, she was coated in blood. It splattered her face and completely painted her hands and arms. She looked like she had been ripped straight from a horror movie. Will fought hard against the urge to turn and run, his vision swimming, but then Sloan locked eyes on him, and she hurtled down the hall, colliding hard against him and wrapping her arms around his neck. Without really making the decision to do it, Will hugged her to him.

It was a long time before she could say anything. He listened to her sobs, feeling strangely numb as he held her. How many times had that numbness protected him in his life, through all of the terrible things that had happened? It was his default, a switch to flip until he could get to safety, but it would crumble. It always did.

"I'm so sorry," Sloan choked out.

Will let her go and she hugged her arms around herself instead, looking small and scared. "How is she?" He asked. He had gotten a briefing from the doctor, but the words wouldn't sink in, nothing did except where he could find Mac.

"They have her sedated while her body recovers. She's on a ventilator. They'll have to run tests when they take her off the medication, but…"

"They don't know if she lost brain function," he supplied for her, surprised by the calm in his voice.

Sloan nodded, jerking her head towards the large glass door obscured by a curtain, asking without words if he would follow her. He looked at her. She had had to watch Mac bleed out on the street, had to talk to the police, not only wait for the bad news, but deliver it to him. So much had rested on her shoulders, and he couldn't even bring himself to go into the room? He nodded resolutely, following her until all that was left between them was a curtain.

Sloan stepped around it with only the briefest of pauses. He echoed her steps, slamming to a halt as soon as he saw Mackenzie. It was her, the logical part of him knew that she way lying in the hospital bed, but it was _not _Mac. Her body was grey, the color of ash, the tips of her fingers a deep purple. A long blue tube protruded from her mouth. The rush of air supplied to her lungs came in a soft whoosh. Her chest plunged mechanically with a beep of the machine, like she had no rib cage at all, like she was hallow. Will felt all the color drain out of his face.

"Kenzie, Will is here," Sloan offered helpfully, taking Mac's hand gingerly in her own. Will wanted to yell at her. He wanted to say that it was stupid to try and talk to Mac, that she couldn't hear, but then he spied the tremulous smile, the smile plastered on for Mac's sake, and he lost the heart to say it. "You actually have to be a wife now. No getting out of it, not just during visitation days." It was a weak attempt at a joke and she knew it, but he appreciated the effort.

"This was some way to get me out of Jail, Mac. I can't say I'm a fan." Jokes were good. He could do jokes. He could hide behind those too, just like the numbness. Sloan let out a little laugh that changed midway through to a sob.

"You can touch her," she said. "You won't hurt her."

Slowly, tentatively, Will reached out a hand to Mac's forehead, brushing hair away from her eyes. He bent his head close to hers, "You need to wake up, Mac. For me." His voice faltered and broke and he pressed a trembling kiss to her forehead. "Everything will be okay if you just wake up."

Her eyes opened. It was what Will thought he was hoping for, but it only terrified him more. Her eyes moved across the room, but they didn't focus. She squeezed his hand back when he touched her, and Will told himself that these were good signs, that she was making her way back to him. Sloan had beamed at him when she first felt the pressure of Mac's fingers against her palm, but dread seeped through him.

She was awake, but she didn't respond the way she should, and they couldn't pretend anymore that it was the sedation that was keeping her from them. He was almost ready for it when the doctor told him, _almost._

"There was no response to any stimuli."

Will hadn't been able to stop himself from fighting for her, couldn't help but find hope. "She holds my hand. Her eyes are open." He had taken her hand then as if in proof.

"Yes," the doctor had said patiently. "We believe those are automatic responses. She hasn't had any voluntary response in any of the tests we've run."

"What are you saying?" Will couldn't help the bite that found its way into his voice. He glared at the doctor like it was his fault, like he was keeping Mac away from him.

"Mackenzie will never wake up the way you want her to. You can choose to keep her on the ventilator, but we can't keep her here. She would have to be moved to a facility."

"Or?" Will's voice sounded far away even to himself, and he gripped Mac's hand even harder.

"Or we take her off the ventilator and see if she can breathe on her own."

"But if she can't, then I killed her."

The doctor had tried to say that that wasn't true. That Will wasn't responsible for whether his wife lived or died, but that didn't change the fact that if he _chose_ to turn off the machine that was keeping her alive, and she couldn't breathe on her own, he was the one who did it.

Jesus, had he yelled at her that night, loud enough that the nurses stared into the room, loud enough that he could hear Sloan crying on the other side of the door where she was keeping vigil, but fuck all of that because how _dare _Mac leave the decision up to him! How dare she be that selfish!

He had screamed until his throat was raw, and then he had collapsed into a heap, burying his face in her neck, begging for forgiveness. Once the tears came they didn't stop. They stole all his breath from him and made his lungs burn. They choked him until he felt like he would be sick and no matter how tightly he held to Mac, no matter how many times he muttered, "no, please, no," she didn't stir. She didn't move. She didn't comfort him. She was gone, had been gone for a while, since he came into the hospital, before that even. Will was exhausted, more exhausted than he had ever been in his life, his heart ached, and his eyes burned, and his whole body felt like it could melt to the ground. Mac had to be so tired, so tired of the exhaustion of existing. He could almost hear her, pleading with him to make the choice for her, to do what she would want.

He let go then and slipped to the floor, burying his head in his hands. He would do it. He would choose for her. When Sloan came in and wrapped her arms around him, Will let himself believe that it was Mac, telling him goodbye.

When the news came that Mackenzie was dead, there was a whole team of reporters in the waiting room, but none of them jumped up with the excitement that followed a new story. They would walk through fire for Mackenzie McHale, but that wasn't an option. They couldn't trade places. They proved their dedication by staying, by promising silently that they would do the news in a way that would make her proud. They promised to take care of _News Night. _Some promised that they would take care of Will, all with the strange empty feeling that something (_someone) _was missing and always would be.


End file.
